Busy Week for Lotus HVM Racing in Fontana

Fontana, CA (September 14, 2012) - Lotus HVM Racing and driver Simona De Silvestro have had a busy week since arriving here in Fontana on Tuesday. The team had a good test on Wednesday and was prepared for a good qualifying today with a newly updated engine.

Tom Brown, team technical director, was pleased with the Wednesday test. "It was a good test," he said. "We ran 238 miles and made good progress considering it was Simona's first time here. We concentrated on race runs and have a great baseline to work with."

The team received a new engine with the latest updates from Lotus late last night. Due to a delay in customs, the engine didn't arrive at the track until very late requiring the team to stay past 2:00 am to complete the installation.

Shane Seneviratne, team manager, was impressed by the team's hard work. "I want to thank all the guys for their hard work," he said. "Unfortunately we had to wait for the engine to get delivered to us. It got held up in customs and didn't arrive until after 9:30 p.m. This is just another example of how hard the guys have worked all season. I'm really proud of them for their continued dedication to the team, Simona and the sponsors."

Sadly, that hard work was for naught. In this morning's practice the engine experienced a failure and will have to be replaced with a previously used engine. The team was unable to install the second engine in time for qualifying leaving De Silvestro watching from the timing stand.
"We blew up the engine in practice this morning," she said, "and we just weren't ready to go out for qualifying. It's a shame, because the team was here really late last night putting the engine in. But, that's racing. It is what it is."

Keith Wiggins, team owner, was optimistic coming into the day. "Well," he said, "it's the last race of the season. We came here and tested in order to get as many miles as we could. Simona and the team had a good test session. We came here today with high hopes having received another fresh engine, the best to date for the weekend, last night. The guys worked hard to put it in, but unfortunately it had a failure today so we didn't get to qualify. We'll go back to one of the other engines for tonight's practice and tomorrows race. We would have had a grid penalty anyway, so we'll still be starting at the back. Our main focus is to have a solid, long race in order to give Simona as much experience on the oval in order to start getting ready for next year."

Vincent Pereme, Motorsport Engine Manager for Lotus Racing also commented on the situation. "We brought a new spec engine for this race with all the improvements we could bring, since we had the chance to re-homologate the engine," he said. "Unfortunately, after having fitted the engine in the car yesterday evening, we only got to do a few laps this morning. The engine had an issue, which is still under investigation here at the track, and back at the factory, to ensure that this will not happen again during tomorrow's race. For now, there is no obvious explanation for this failure and we want to apologize to the HVM Racing team and Simona for taking away her chance to fight her way forward in the qualifying session. We will do everything possible to fine-tune the engine on the car for this evening's test session. And, after that, we just all need to concentrate on tomorrow's race."

On another note, the team is proud to be hosting AREVA and their newest employee, Scott David. David has served two tours in Afghanistan and will start work at one of the company's Lynchburg, VA facilities on Monday. AREVA is proud of the success they've seen with their recruiting efforts through the Hiring Our Heroes initiative. AREVA has hired over 20 veterans since they began their recruiting efforts in January of this year.

Scott and his fellow AREVA employees and their guests will be on hand tomorrow night when the checkered flag drops on the season finale in Fontana. The race will air live on NBC Sports beginning at 4:30 p.m. Pacific time.

About HVM Racing
HVM Racing was founded by Keith Wiggins and is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. HVM enters 2011 as its tenth year of competition since forming in 2001 and has earned six victories, two pole positions, and an additional 16 podiums. They earned "Indianapolis Rookie of the Year" honors with driver Simona De Silvestro at the 2010 event and since joining the IZOD INDYCAR Series in 2008, the team has earned nine top-10 finishes. HVM finished fourth and third, respectively, in the Champ Car World Series in 2006 and 2007, and earned drivers Mario Dominguez and Robert Doornbos Rookie of the Year honors in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Follow HVM Racing at www.hvmracing.com, on twitter at www.twitter.com/HVMracing, and on facebook at www.facebook.com/HVMRacing.

About Lotus
Group Lotus plc, is based in Norfolk, UK, and has three operating divisions: Lotus Cars, Lotus Engineering and Lotus Motorsport.

Lotus Cars builds world class, high performance sports cars including the award-winning Evora, the iconic Elise and the stunning Exige and the road / track orientated 2-Eleven. Lotus New Era, the future product line-up, was unveiled in Paris on 30th September 2010 featuring the new Esprit, Elan, Elite, Elise and Eterne.

Lotus Engineering provides comprehensive and versatile consultancy services to many of the world's OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers and is an internationally recognised automotive engineering consultancy. Global facilities include those in the US, Malaysia, China and offices in Germany and Japan. Lotus is a global high-tech company, committed to driving forward technology for both Lotus Cars and its Engineering clients, spearheading research into such areas as hybrids, electric vehicles and renewable fuels.

Lotus Motorsport operates the motorsports activities of Lotus and includes the strategy to return the Lotus name to a great number of series including endurance racing with GT2, GT4 and LMP2, single seater racing with GP2, GP3 and IndyCar. Lotus has also returned to F1 with Lotus Renault GP from the start of the 2011 F1 racing season onwards.

About Entergy
Entergy is the second largest owner and operator of U.S. nuclear energy plants. They operate or provide management services to 12 reactors at 10 sites. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity and delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11 billion and more than 15,000 employees. Follow at www.NuclearCleanAirEnergy.com and www.entergy-nuclear.com; on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EntergyNuclear and www.twitter/NuclearCleanAir, and on facebook at www.facebook.com/Nuclear Clean Air Energy.